Macao Government Tourism Office × BBC StoryWorks Macao Through Generations - Campaign Series

A six-part brand documentary campaign for the Macao Government Tourism Office, produced by BBC StoryWorks and shot on location across Macao with director Jon Lister.

The brief

A hero film plus five character portraits, positioning Macao as far more than a day-trip stopover: a city of culture, gastronomy, and genuine community, told through the people shaping it. The hero follows Vienna Sou, a Macao local, growing up in the city and now raising her own family there. Around her sit five portraits across Macao’s world-class integrated resorts: a spa director at Studio City Macau, the team behind The Londoner Macao, MGM’s Senior VP of Arts & Culture Cristina Kuok, the culinary director of Grand Lisboa Palace Stefan Müller, and three-Michelin-star chef Tam Kwok Fung at Wynn Palace Cotai.

The challenge

Six films, five locations, and a cast of high-profile subjects, all inside ten days. Every story meant its own appointments, its own permits, its own slice of resort access, and the schedule rarely left much room. More often than not we had minimal time on the floor to capture everything a story needed before moving to the next.

The approach

You plan hard, then you stay loose. Knowing the time per location would be tight, we walked in with a clear shot priority for each story, got the non-negotiable frames first, and used the local network to keep permits and access moving so the camera was never the thing waiting. Across six pieces the look had to stay of a single family, even as the subjects ranged from a spa to a three-Michelin-star kitchen.

The result

A successful campaign for the Tourism Office, and something I didn’t expect from a ten-day sprint: a small crew that turned into a family in that short window. The kind of bond that only forms when a tight team solves hard problems together, day after day.